Setting fiscal facts straight

An Opinion piece by Sen. Patty Murray, “In Budget Debate, ‘Past Is Prologue’” (POLITICO, May 16), correctly noted that “history matters” — particularly as it relates to the debate over the budget and sequestration. It certainly does. That’s why it is so critical to set the record straight and respond to inaccurate assertions made in the piece.

The author, who was co-chairwoman of the “Supercommittee” on which we all served, stated that the panel “failed to reach an agreement because Republicans refused to even consider tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.”

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That’s not the case.

In fact, on behalf of all Republicans on the committee, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) put forward a $500 billion revenue-increase proposal, which included $250 billion in new taxes on the wealthiest Americans. That Republican offer represented our willingness to put taxes on the table in order to reach a compromise.

So it is inaccurate, then, for Democrats to now claim that they could not persuade us to “give an inch when it came to increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans.” Republicans were willing to offer up hundreds of billions in new revenue, but it was never enough for the Democrats on the committee.

Aware of the significance of our offer, even Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, called it a “breakthrough” in the negotiations. Logically, such a proposal should have provided the spark for a bipartisan deal.

Instead of embracing this breakthrough, however, our Democrat colleagues shunted it aside — demanding even more taxes.

As a result, Congress now must figure out how to mitigate the devastating consequences of sequestration.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate have already introduced bills that would avert the automatic defense cuts that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta likened to “shooting ourselves in the head” and non-defense cuts that FBI Director Robert Mueller called “devastating.” The country would be ill-served if Congress can’t find the $109 billion in offsets to avoid sequestration for next year.

There are other ways we can move forward to prevent these devastating across-the-board cuts. So we are extending a hand once again to our Democrat friends to do just that. Rather than try to assign blame for the past — and inaccurately at that — now is the time to look forward and join with us to work out a compromise that can avert the sequestration that we all know would be bad for our country.